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game."
    The man kept staring at Buzz, then seemed to make his mind up and sighed. "Well, he does need all the friends he can get right now. He's not doing so good."
    A strange, cold feeling rippled through Buzz. "Not good how?"
    "He's sick , kid. Moving-out-of-his-house sick. And he ain't coming back."
    The cold feeling got worse. "Where?" said Buzz. "Where is he?"
    Â 
    *****
    Buzz left the neighborhood and set out along Cheney Highway to find Mr. Bittermaker. He ended up taking Route 1 to the north e nd of town. It was a long ride by bike, but he didn't have a choice; he figured it was his last chance to find out what nice thing he'd supposedly done.
    After a half-hour or so, he rolled up to the Whispering Palms Nursing Home , a sprawling brick building near the Parrish Medical Center . He threw his bike down under the one palm tree in the dry brown yard and marched up to the front door.
    Pulling the door open, he walked inside...and immediately came face to face with a cluster of old people in wheelchairs. There were six of them, all gaping at him with wide eyes and big smiles (except one old man who was sound asleep and snoring).
    Buzz smiled back, already imagining the mischief he could get up to in this place. So many wheelchairs, so little time.
    Then, one of the old folks spoke. "Well aren't you sweet?" She sat at the front of the group, wearing giant dark-rimmed glasses and a pink button-down sweater over a green blouse. Buzz thought she looked younger than the others, but her face drooped a little on the left side. "Come to visit your grampa, have you?"
    Instinctively, Buzz snapped right into con artist mode. "Yes, ma'am. Can you tell me where to find him ? His name's Max Bittermaker."
    The old woman frowned and nodded. "Good for you, child. God bless you."
    Buzz kept smiling. "Because I'm visiting?"
    The old woman reached out and took his hand. "Because he might not be with us much longer."
    Buzz frowned. "You mean he's moving again?"
    She gave his hand a squeeze. "I mean he's very, very sick."
    Â 
    *****
    As Buzz walked down the hallway, following the directions the old woman gave him , he stopped thinking about mischief for a change. He was too distracted by the sights and sounds and smells that flowed around him.
    A black man with a crazy look in his eyes lunged out of a room in front of Buzz, staggering toward him and lurching away at the last second. An old man moaned in a room that he walked past; further down the hall, a woman wailed incoherently. The ammonia-like odor of urine filled the air, mingled with the smell of Lysol.
    It was not a nice place to be. If Mr. Bittermaker didn't tell Buzz what he wanted to hear after forcing him to come here, Buzz swore he'd make him pay.
    When Buzz reached the end of the hall, he finally came to Room 42. The door was wide open, so he stepped inside and looked around.
    There were two beds in the little room. Buzz was surprised to see a young man sleeping in the one closest to the door. He looked like he was in his twenties or thirties; his hair was blond stubble, and he wore a white V-neck t -shirt and gray sweatpants. Buzz wondered why his wrists were strapped to the bed rails in padded restraints.
    The bed on the other side, closest to the window, was partly obscured by a tan curtain pulled midway across the room. All Buzz could see at first was the lower half of a body underneath a white sheet, ending in the peaks of two feet pushing up the sheet like tent poles.
    Slowly, he walked past the first bed with the sleeping young man. As he eased past the curtain and looked at the full length of the bed by the window, he saw the rest of Mr. Bittermaker--belly, chest, shoulders, arms, head. His eyes were closed, his hands folded on his stomach.
    But what interested Buzz the most, what really caught and held his eye, was something on the bedside table. There, beside the phone and a little gr ay-green pitcher of water in a S tyrofoam shell, was a glittering black object.
    It